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Creators

Kent Monkman’s Massive Renaissance-Style Paintings Upend Colonial Narratives

Monkman is on a quest to squeeze as much throbbing detail into his energetic canvases as humanly possible.

More is definitely more in the massive tableau paintings of Kent Monkman. The Canadian artist of Cree and Irish ancestry paints scenes that feel like modernized Renaissance paintings, depicting everything from Native Americans and colonial cowboys straddling a naked woman martyr covered in pierced arrows, to surreal mashups of uniform-clad prisoners, winged angels, and crashing helicopters, all squeezed within the same frame.

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In embracing this sort of 'maximalist' aesthetic, Monkman is able to explore an extraordinary amount of subject matter and thematic interests across his already large body of work, different than many abstract or minimalist painters whose works often emphasize the subtle differences amongst each piece. This isn't to say Monkman doesn't have a distinct visual style; he most certainly does, but the storytelling ability of his paintings feels just as important as his own painterly capacities.

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